Talk:World Dominator (3.5e Class)

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Ratings[edit]

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Rating
Tarkisflux dislikes this article and rated it 1 of 4.
This rating refers to a substantially different version of the article, or concerns mentioned in it have already been addressed.
The World Dominator is built on an interesting premise - that you can have ridiculous, over the top, large scale effect fluff with level appropriate mechanical effects. And while it might actually succeed at that goal (a more thorough examination of the powers would be required to know for sure), I can't get behind the design idea itself.


Given that I've changed every World Dominator power since this rating was made, is there any chance you could be persuaded to rephrase your disapproval? --Foxwarrior (talk) 00:36, 8 December 2012 (UTC)
Sure, though it might take a while for me to go through the updated powers. Until then I'll just stop it from counting. - Tarkisflux Talk 01:10, 8 December 2012 (UTC)
RatedNeutral.png Luigifan18 is neutral on this article and rated it 2 of 4.
For a class whose manifesting is supposed to be its primary ability, the power list is awfully small. I really do like the concept, though. I'll probably increase my rating as the power list expands.


Oh no, the large scale effects are meant to be deadly mechanical (certain assumptions may have been made about the value of a peasant army). The World Dominator is essentially a flamethrower or a tank-mounted gatling gun in a metaphor where the Wizard is a sniper rifle. Do you not think there's room in the VH play space for a character with more raw power and less finesse than the Core casters? --Foxwarrior (talk) 19:49, 21 November 2012 (UTC)
...Maybe Planetspinning was overboard. --Foxwarrior (talk) 19:59, 21 November 2012 (UTC)
At level 1? IMO No. At level 9 or 11 as a PrC? Probably. Large scale 'everyone suffers / benefits' stuff might be workable, but I would argue for mechanical weakness to counter larger AoEs, which may not be desirable. - Tarkisflux Talk 20:39, 21 November 2012 (UTC)
Well, the scale isn't very large at level 1. I did implement exponential size increases for a reason. --Foxwarrior (talk) 20:43, 21 November 2012 (UTC)
...Level 1 powers include multiple mile radius weather control, medium range telepathy broadcast (that is an otherwise 7th level power), medium range cone damage, a lower level fog cloud that is also 15 times as large, and a long range divination. I have no idea what you mean by "scale isn't very large". - Tarkisflux Talk 21:44, 21 November 2012 (UTC)
Okay, maybe I had a slightly excessive view of how good Wizards were when I made this. I'll get on toning it down soon. --Foxwarrior (talk) 22:16, 21 November 2012 (UTC)
I think what Foxwarrior meant is that the low-level powers are kinda weaksauce at first, especially in terms of range. You need to augment them to get their range to become truly impressive. --Luigifan18 (talk) 21:54, 23 November 2012 (UTC)
That was not the case until recently, since the ranges were crazy. And given the very narrow distance between the balance levels at low levels, I'm not convinced that there's even room for this sort of thing as a base class as opposed to a PrC. I'm willing to be proven wrong though, as Fox seems intent to do with his power tweaks. - Tarkisflux Talk 22:12, 23 November 2012 (UTC)
Making it as a PrC would mean that I couldn't deprive the character of precise powers. I have already made a Scaling feat for dipping World Dominator powers, though.
I'll get around to trying a level 5 SGT soon, I think. See where they're really at right now.
Well, each power does encompass almost half a Sphere's-worth of different effects with its augments, Luigifan18. The World Dominator's 21 powers easily equates to 80 normal spells. --Foxwarrior (talk) 06:02, 24 November 2012 (UTC)
RatedDislike.png Franken Kesey dislikes this article and rated it 1 of 4.
The power list is very short. Hampering this class's options in games.


Balance[edit]

This is not balanced to wizzard level This is perhaps balanced to god ranks... At level 11 it can destroy a planet in a single action... more then 10 times a day...

First, remember to sign your comments on talk pages. Second, rare is the PC who aims to destroy a whole plane. Third, I'd assume you be implying that either planet spinning or Star Gate would allow this, both of which do not actually screw up whole planes, but are more likely to screw up Planets which are much smaller, but even so, level 11 is nothing compared to level 17, where in a single day, you could turn a whole pantheon of gods into new toys for you and your teamies.
Third, have you seen any of the sheets for gods? Most suck. Wizards could beat them, assuming they fought smart. Rogues would have about a 50/50 chance of winning. And a bard could deprive them of worshipers in droves. That would screw them up even more. --YX33A 19:33, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

SGT[edit]

I'm vaguely wondering whether Eiji is right that the World Dominator is like, totally overpowered, so I think I'll do a level 10 SGT here. Since it's Very High level, rather than comparing percentages, it seems more practical to compare it to a Wizard.

Boring +2 INT Race World Dominator (10) with stat items and extremely irrelevant feats, lets say 20 CHA and 24 INT:

113 Power Points, with Reduced Prices 2 that means 14 strong powers per day, or 3/encounter according to silly "Same Game" assumptions

Power List: Breath of Cold, Broadcast, Cloud Control, Ground Control, Stone Rain, Weavewarping, Blanket Domination, Night of the Living Dead, Planetspinning, Victor's History

Okay...

Hallway filled with magical runes: He doesn't know about the runes, so maybe the first one will kill him, but after that about half of his powers can be used to bypass it. Slightly worse than a Wizard, because the Wizard might notice it in advance, and Wizards frequently have dimension door or teleport.

Fire Giant: Just like the Wizard, the World Dominator can stomp all over this poor fellow. Might take a little bit of damage from rocks if he's trying to be conservative with breaths of cold or something.

Blue Dragon: There aren't any trivial solutions that I can see: Breath of Cold or Cloud Control could be used to kite it slightly, but planetspinning is a very expensive spell for repeated use, and 1-round actions are a bit harsh in combat. The dragon's burrow speed definitely saves it. Unless the Wizard is a shivering touch addict, he'll probably have similar levels of difficulty.

Bebilith: The Bebilith jumps off the ceiling and poisons the World Dominator. The World Dominator can try to planetspin away and blast it from a distance, but a 1-round casting time makes that unlikely to succeed. The Bebilith might actually have a better than even fight. A Wizard is likely to do better.

Vrock: Neither one has a guarenteed strategy against the other. The Vrock can repeatedly sneak up and spore the World Dominator, then teleport to the moon. The World Dominator can try to use weavewarping to trap the Vrock if he can correctly guess when the Vrock has teleported back in, and then blast it with breath of cold or cloud control until it dies. It's not trivial, and the Vrock might just use its telekinesis, screech, and full attack actions to kill the World Dominator first. A Wizard has some difficulty fighting a Vrock too, but might have a no-SR Reflex or Will based kill spell, which gives him a straight up better than 50% chance of finishing it off in one round.

Mind Flayers: Annoyingly not in the SRD, but I hear they don't have serious stealth or movement capabilities. If either the Wizard or the World Dominator sees them from 100 feet away or more, this fight is a joke. Otherwise, the Mind Flayers get a round to do something, then either one can flee and make this fight into a joke. The Wizard is slightly worse off because he has somatic components that are really bad in a grapple.

Evil Necromancer: As another Wizard, this is approximately an even fight with the Wizard. The World Dominator can trivially kill off all the Necromancer's minions, but weavewarping is too slow to be an effective way to trap the Necromancer. If the fight is taking place in a graveyard or other corpse-filled place, which it really should, the World Dominator can use night of the living dead to order all corpses within a mile to get up and attack the Necromancer. The World Dominator is still very susceptible to the Necromancer's kill spells, so it's probably a very different sort of even fight.

6 Trolls: The Wizard can fly. The World Dominator can blast them to death. That makes the World Dominator faster at it.

12 Shadows: The Wizard probably has some difficulty. The World Dominator can try to remove gravity from the area, wait for them all to get up into the air, and then blast them to death.


I certainly didn't make the most optimal power selections here, so it might be possible that the World Dominator needs a tiny bit of toning down. --Foxwarrior 17:47, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

Another SGT: Level 5[edit]

Essentially the same character, except that they have 16 CHA and 20 INT, 32 power points, and a cost reduction of 1, for 8 strong powers/day, or about 2 per encounter.

Powers known are: breath of cold, cloud control, ground control, world map, and mists.

What? The level 5 SGT actually gives some environment suggestions? That's almost reasonable!

Locked door and CR 4 traps: breath of cold doesn't damage objects, so that leaves an augmented ground control. If all the traps and the door fit in a 30' radius, the World Dominator wins. Otherwise, they don't, but either way the World Dominator doesn't know about the traps before springing one or two. 60%

Animated iron statue in throne room: ground control with the damage and difficult terrain? The statue will probably manage to stand up and walk out eventually, but the World Dominator can run around and manifest it again. 70%, but more than one encounter's-worth of resources.

Basilisk in burrow: Spamming unaugmented world maps with reduced price might give the World Dominator a surprise advantage, but although he can probably safely close his eyes in this fight, he doesn't have any way to kill it without taking a few claw hits. 95%, but more than one encounter's-worth of resources.

Fire Elemental: Cold damage is the World Dominator's favorite type, but the fire elemental does serious amounts of damage too. 60%.

Manticore above a plain: cloud control doesn't have quite enough of an area to outrange the spikes. 24 spikes is a lot. Poor World Dominator. 10%.

Phase Spider: A readied power is obviously the way to go here, but a lack of mechanisms for actual action denial means that the spider just escapes again. Three bites average to kill, I'm guessing, which is about the same as the number of powers it takes the World Dominator to kill the spider. Luckily readied actions means the World Dominator goes first. 60%, but the World Dominator needs a week to recover.

Two Centaur Archers in forest: 80' cones with breath of cold would work, if only those centaurs would come closer. Since they're in a forest, there's probably a clump of trees such that the World Dominator can arrange that. 60%.

Howler/Allip team in abandoned temple: The Howler isn't much of a big deal aside from the pointy teeth. The Allip drains Wisdom, so it's not that much of a problem either. breath of cold or ground control for the potential win. 60%

Grimlock Assault team in cavern: world maps might notice the team but either way a single breath of cold kills them. 85%

Cleric of Hextor and a dozen zombies in a crypt: world maps probably notice the zombies, then ground control kills them. Then there's a brief fight with the Cleric, and one of them dies. 50%.

61%? That sounds like a reasonable number. The World Dominator seems to really regret their lack of movement options at this level. --Foxwarrior (talk) 08:06, 24 November 2012 (UTC)

reduced prices[edit]

applied before or after augments? Grog toad (talk) 12:52, 25 June 2016 (UTC)

Isn't there a general rule in this game somewhere for deciding the order in which you apply buffs or modifiers? --Foxwarrior (talk) 18:18, 26 June 2016 (UTC)
Nowhere I could see. the rules i could find were just about stacking and said you only used the biggest numbers. The real question I guess is did you want that class feature to allow one to use powers with PP costs greater than your level, like say a level 5 WD augmeting a power so that its PP cost is 6? The reason I ask is because you can only manifest powers with PP costs equal to or less than ones' ML, and whether this applies before or after that check changes how useful the ability is, stronger powers vs simply more per day. Grog toad (talk) 19:57, 26 June 2016 (UTC)
Oh, good point about that one, definitely after augments would be preferable. --Foxwarrior (talk) 07:07, 6 July 2016 (UTC)

Powers[edit]

It seams like the quantity of world-dominatior powers is low. Most of them are very powerful for their level (as they should be). That being said there should be more. By happenstance, the following articles were created which you may want to add to the list: Earth, Water, Plants, Acid, Gravity, Jelly, Space or Time. Additionally, you may want to check out the Zone of Mundane.--Franken Kesey 13:41, 28 March 2019 (MDT)

The reduced price feature is bad, they already get a Psion power progression. Reducing the cost to potentially zero, is just bad.--Franken Kesey 13:50, 28 March 2019 (MDT)
Not really. At level 5 you get unaugmented 1st level powers free or effectively at will. Then 2nds at will at 11 and 3rds at 17. If my level 5 wizard could use magic missile at will but with a CL of 1 I don’t believe that would be unbalanced. Also note their very limited power list. Admittedly it would be better if 1st level powers(even at ML 1) were not at will until you had 4th level powers. So a reduced prices of -1pp at 7th and every err... 2.5 levels thereafter (7, 9(9.5), 12, 14(14.5), 17, 19(19.5)) would work out the same over the end but raise when that 1st level of powers become free.

Honestly, by the time you reach level 10 or so 1st level spells and powers are not really relevant and do not represent a large amount of a character’s power or abilities (for fullcasters anyway). With few exceptions or problematic ones (cure minor wounds I’m looking at you). Grog toad (talk) 19:07, 28 March 2019 (MDT)

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